Editorial
No scope for complacence, yet
A World Bank study on Quomi madrassahs ‘reveals’ that these institutions, running primarily on private donations, are doing ‘a good job’ within their specific educational context, as reported in New Age on Saturday. It also claims that that these madrassahs, unlike the more traditional ones in Pakistan, have undergone structural changes even without state intervention and are increasingly becoming feminised enrolling more female students. The study also finds that the number of students enrolled in these madrassahs is less then two per cent of all students enrolled in institutions across the country.
This study, being one of the few, if any at all, on Quomi madrassahs, carried out as part of the WB’s comprehensive effort to examine the quality of secondary education in Bangladesh, brings to light several other matters that had recently become reasons for genuine concern. The study dispels the growing apprehension, at least for the time being, that the madrassah base of students had reached alarmingly high proportions. It also rejects another ‘finding’ that raised much alarm claiming that Bangladesh military recruitment of personnel with madrassah background had gone up from only five per cent from before the 2001 general elections to almost 35 per cent by 2006 during the tenure of BNP-Jamaat government.
This was publicly stated twice — once in a study by Wazed and Ciovacco (2008), published in the Harvard International Review, and then by former ambassador Waliur Rahman at a workshop of the Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs on April 16, 2009. On both instances the claims were by and large discredited because of the individuals’ proximity to the Awami League and their obvious interest in discrediting the main opposition, but even more so because neither claim was backed by authentic documentation or suggestion of comprehensive studies to substantiate them.
However, the cause of alarm could not be dismissed, especially from among the more conscious sections of the citizenry, since they are well aware of certain international forces bent on furthering their propaganda of proliferation of the Islamist terrorism and eagerly waiting for an excuse to initiate another front in the ‘war on terror’ without any respect for the national sovereignty of the countries where such trends are allegedly gaining ground. The WB’s report in this regard should act as a deterrent as it rejects those claims.
Still, Bangladesh does not have any reason to sit back with any sense of complacence, as the trend of growing extremism is very much there. Bangladeshi Islamist extremism is primarily a political reaction to the official West’s negative attitude towards ‘Muslim countries’ on the one hand and the failures of the ruling elites to address pervasive poverty of the millions on the other. As long as these phenomena exist, the ground will remain fertile for extremism, Islamist or otherwise, while the undemocratic forces using Islam for partisan gains would continue capture the hearts of thousands in their call for setting up of a theocratic state.
If genuinely committed to democracy, the government therefore will have to actively fight the spread of this brand of religious extremism on several fronts — social, political, economic and cultural. For starters, the government would have to appear not another one of the West’s cronies. The citizens will have to be made more aware, through active campaigns, about the adverse effect of, say, Talibanisation. On top of that all, the government has to implement truly egalitarian economic policies to ensure inclusive development of the people in general, instead of exclusive development of the rich minority that perpetuates crude disparity among different sections of the society, causing frustration among the poor about the existing political order. While democratisation of society and state, inclusive economic growth and distancing from the crudely anti-Muslim western states remain key to deter the further rise of Islamist militancy, mainstreaming madrassah education, Quomi or otherwise, remains one of the most important jobs for any democratically oriented government willing to stand in the way of the Islamist political forces finding easy recruits for their parochial partisan purposes.
Buriganga is in its death throes
The river Buriganga, the lifeline of the city of Dhaka, is in its death throes. Some other rivers in the neighbourhood, the Sitalakhya, Turag, Balu and the river Bangshi in Savar are similarly choking to death. An environmental catastrophe of incalculable proportions is unfolding. There is no time for further rhetoric and futurist boasts. Action must be immediate and decisive. This catastrophe is predictable and manmade and therefore can still be prevented if the government and all concerned act. Leaders of the Save the Environment Movement did not exaggerate when they said, at a rally campaigning to save the Buriganga, that Dhaka will not be a liveable city after 20 years if degradation of the rivers at this rate continues. Some other green groups like Poribesh Andolon and Buriganga Andolon have organised rallies in an effort to prompt the authorities to take immediate action, and they have been doing so for the past few years without any result so far. It is strange that citizens had to persuade the government to perform their routine task of protecting the rivers. And that too proved almost futile. And these protests were organised after the rivers’ pollution had reached an advanced stage.
The reasons for degradation of the rivers are encroachment, pollution and absence of dredging and maintenance. Illegal occupation of the Buriganga has been going on for more than a decade. Under mounting public pressure, the government did launch a drive in the past to clear the river of encroachers but there was no sustained action and no durable result followed. As if the occupiers were too powerful for the authorities to act against. Besides illegal occupation of the river-space, effluents from 250 tanneries and some 500 other plants including dyeing factories are discharged into the river. The brickfields are another major source of pollution. Unauthorised and unplanned quarrying of sand has critically enfeebled some rivers. A report sometime ago revealed that as many as seventeen rivers of the country have disappeared for ever and eight more are in the last gasp of survival. The Buriganga can be assumed to be in this category.
Last year different organisations celebrated four hundred years of the founding of the city of Dhaka. Naturally the state of the dying Buriganga was highlighted amid the ceremonies and public discussions. And yet, there is no action. The offending factories have not yet installed effluent treatment plants and are using the Buriganga as a cesspool for releasing their discharges. The law makes it mandatory to have waste treatment plants. In this country absence of civic responsibility on the part of the privileged classes is matched by lack of or selectivity in enforcement of the law.
Despite this supreme urgency of saving the Buriganga and the neighbouring rivers, we have no idea what the government’s priority is in this regard. No urgency is visible. Experts have suggested the setting up of a high-power national river authority to deal with the issue of river pollution. Significantly, the National Committee on Environment is proving ineffective. The present state of the Buriganga is an alarm bell for the government and all others.
Challenges for South Asia’s media
by Kanak Mani Dixit
South Asia contains a fifth of the world’s population, so the freedom for our people means freedom for a large portion of humanity itself. Our particular history and demographic diversity have served to make South Asia an open society, relative to so many societies. This is why the Subcontinent is one of the most vibrant of global regions, reflecting the argumentativeness of our people.
The South Asian citizen abhors despotism and will not allow it to extend its roots beyond a certain period and beyond a certain depth. His and her quest for freedom and democracy is relentless. And it is this quest which finds a voice in the urge for press freedom. As autocrats, dictators, kings, warlords and demagogues try to turn our societies into their fiefdoms, the journalist stands up for the freedom to think, analyse, report and to broadcast. If it is true that pluralism and democracy saves us from famines and mal-governance, then journalism is the frontline medium that makes this come true.
Sadly, in large parts of South Asia, journalism is today a perilous vocation. The more professional we become, the more we try to live up to the demands of our craft, and the closer to the ground we function, the more we face the wrath of the autocratic state and the non-state actor. As we speak, South Asia has become one of the most dangerous parts of the world for the journalists. More journalists have begun to die here in the line of duty than any other part of the world, from the ravines of Swat to the marshes of Assam, from the plains of Nepal to the avenues of Colombo. Perhaps this victimisation is linked to the commitment to our calling. Our reporters in print, radio and television, our editorial cartoonists, our photojournalists, they constantly push the envelope, challenging the exclusivist agenda of the state and of power-brokers everywhere.
The journalism journey is actually in its initial stages in our region: if there are hundreds of radio and television stations today, there will be thousands tomorrow. Economic growth and demand for localised and contextualised news and information will lead to more independent newspapers, and not just the metro editions of conglomerates. All of this will happen in tandem with the growth of IT-based media advance. As media expands and becomes more localised, the challenges and threats faced by the journalist will expand exponentially. We had better be prepared.
* * *
Over the last half year, some of our best and brightest were attacked in different parts. Tragically, some of them were stalked and murdered. Lasantha Wickremetunga and Uma Singh never got to meet each other. One was the internationally recognised, courageous editor of a national newspaper in Colombo, who knew that there were death squads about in the time of wartime hysteria. The other was an unflinching practitioner in Nepal’s eastern Tarai plains, hosting radio shows and writing articles, naming names and challenging local commissars, knowing all the while that the existing statelessness and rampant impunity provided her with no protection. Lasantha and Uma, each in his and her own sphere at the national and district level, were holding up the finest values of journalism, to be resolute in the face coercion and threat of violence. We must not give up the campaign to know who pulled the trigger in Colombo, who wielded the machete in Janakpur.
Recalling Lasantha Wickremetunga and Uma Singh, our reaction must not be limited to raising a voice against impunity and absence of accountability. We must look into our own professional selves, to examine whether we come up to the standards set by our two departed colleagues. Looking at the late Uma Singh’s book rack after her passing, in the single room she had rented in Janakpur town, a colleague was taken aback by the breadth of her readings. Listening to the playback of radio programmes on her computer, reading her articles printed just days before she was murdered, one saw idealism, versatility, daring and a questioning. What many saw as Lasantha Wickremetunga’s bravado, they recognised only in his death as a colossal reservoir of courage that he deployed to stop the wartime slide away from pluralism in his country.
It is right and proper, in fighting for freedom of the press in each of our societies of South Asia, for us practitioners to stop for a moment to mull over whether we are deserving of the freedom we so crave to protect. Are we doing all that society expects of us even within present confines of budgetary constriction or governmental restriction? Do we seek to make more elbow room or do we succumb to the first hint of violence? Indeed there are entire regions of South Asia where the journalist is not taking advantage of the freedom that is actually available, hemmed in also by the timidity of publishers and station-owners. Conducting high-profile journalism in the capitals and major metros, we are shielded from ground-level turbulence and challenges. We can make believe that our stratospheric analysis of geopolitics and national-level elections makes for fine journalism. At this level, that too with journalism conducted in the English language, there is little fear of reaction or revulsion, of being challenged and splattered by the muck of the marketplace.
Even when we do a good job of covering national level politics, when it comes to addressing rebellions within our countries or in reporting on neighbours and international affairs, we can all-too-often sense the odour of ultra-nationalism in the copy. At some point, we seem to stop being journalists and write and report instead as the nationalist citizens of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan or Sri Lanka. The contrarian position, the willingness to go against the populist grain in search of facts and the elusive truth, is really what the public desires even as we journalists seek to appease the baser instincts. Indeed, as some of us saw in a journalists’ meet in Chittagong recently, many journalists were very happy to be represented by their national flags, as if we delegations representing our individual state establishments.
Journalism can too often be reduced to form rather than content. Everywhere, there is too little investigative journalism of corporate and political excess. We journalists allow ‘them’ to get away with it. There is a culture of self-censorship even when there is not the pressure. In the more successful economies or sub-economies of our region, goaded by the pressures of the market, the commercialisation of media has diverted a whole phalanx of capable journalists to become corporate yes-men and -women rather than watchdogs of the public. Newspapers which have been created by the toil of editors and reporters over the decades, are today regarded by their publishers as little more than chattel, money-making machines.
* * *
Ladies and gentlemen, Nepal, the host country of this World Press Freedom Day commemoration, provides an exhilarating example of the strides that media has made and can make on behalf of the public. It is not so long ago, in the Panchayat era prior to 1990, that there was indeed peace in the country but it was a peace sans discourse; a peace without participatory development; a peace of the masaan-ghat, of the cemetery. The People’s Movement of 1990 ushered a Constitution which sourced sovereignty to the people and guaranteed the fundamental freedoms. At long last Nepal became a free country, proud to be a member of the comity of nations of SAARC. National self-esteem grew by leaps and bounds.
The print media was the first to take off, with the arrival of the Kantipur daily, and before long we came to the pleasant realisation that media efforts could survive off the market and that journalism could be a respectable, credible profession. Back in 1990, the FM spectrum on the radio set was empty, a band of silence. Today, twirl the dial and you are greeted by a pleasant cacophony of voices, informing, educating and entertaining. This radio revolution, begun in early 1990’s by the likes of Bharat Dutt Koirala, Hem Bahadur Bista and Rajendra Dahal, stands today as a proud achievement of Nepal and a trailblazer for all of South Asia. The right to transmission was wrested from the state and gifted to the people, and community, public and private stations rose up to fill the radio spectrum. Together with print and radio, television also gathered steam, and photojournalism and political cartoons rapidly came of age, to add zest and edge to journalism in Nepal. The people responded with enthusiasm, and were able to generate enough energy and voice to end both royal autocracy and an armed insurgency.
There are numerous other ways in which Nepal achieve rapid advance in media to join the rank of free societies, much of which we today take for granted. The ability to question and challenge authority, led by the media, energised the citizenry everywhere, and made the development process finally participatory after decades of desultory effort. The documentary film revolution is something worth mentioning, because nowhere in South Asia, in my estimation, has the non-fiction audiovisual genre found such ready acceptance among the lay audience. Whether it is films like Dhruba Basnet and Mohan Mainalis’ Jogimaraka Jiunda Haru or Kesang Tseten’s recent film Frames of War, they attract the crowds because they are made amidst an atmosphere of freedom while respecting the viewer. It can be said that free media and open society after 1990 allowed release to the Nepali psyche, and the people learnt to challenge authority and to stand up against historical marginalisation.
There are of course many shortcomings as far as our media is concerned. There is much to learn from our colleagues in other countries, who have enjoyed freedom and grappled with the challenges for so much longer. Journalism in Nepal is still largely manned by one community among the country’s myriad communities. Training opportunities have suddenly vanished, weakening media even as there is incongruous expansion. The economic downturn has drastically affected the viability of many media houses, and investigative and economic journalism have not risen to the levels that this transitional society demands. While the uniqueness of Nepali journalism is the absence of the vernacular vis-à-vis English divide that burdens so much of the rest of South Asia, it is a fact that the lack of English language exposure impacts on the quality of the journaliistic output.
And yet, media was the one area that was able to adjust quickly to open society after 1990 even as the other sectors initially foundered, including politics, bureaucracy, business and academia. The media sensitised the public to what was possible, and amidst relentless political turbulence the journalist was able to provide perspective and context so that the ship of society did not go under. The media world of Nepal strove for the highest principles and practice, even as we entered a telescoped period of political evolution, from the rise of the Maoist insurgency in 1996 and the state’s counter-terror, to the royal palace massacre of 2001, three states of emergency, the peace process, the People’s Movement, the Madhes Movement which followed, the Constituent Assembly elections of a year ago, all of it leading, unfortunately, to the present state of society’s suspended animation.
This suspended animation has mainly to do with the fact that an insurgent force has achieved the government through elections of a year ago, even as it seeks to democratise. Amidst the peace process which is at disequilibrium, there has been no effort at rehabilitation and reconstruction, and the people suffer without development, without economic growth, without law and order, and with rising impunity that is at times encouraged by the present state establishment. The party which leads the government continues to perceive criticism as an act of enmity. It would have us believe that journalism is not at all an independent calling, but merely a part of the class struggle as defined by the party.
The killings of journalists and physical attacks on media houses large and small, has created an atmosphere of uncertainty. Like Uma Singh, journalists Birendra Shah, J P Joshi and Prakash Singh Thakuri were murdered while pursuing their craft. When a media house was attacked, the defense was that no one was killed. When a journalist was slashed to death, we were asked to compare the situation with that of South Africa, where so many more had died during the peace process. In the case of the Prakash Singh Thakuri, the government has gone as far as to drop charges against the accused. When journalists were beaten up, the accused were felicitated by top party officials and ministers with garlands and vermillion.
Together with the political activist, the human rights defender and the grassroots development worker, the journalist is today in the frontline engaging the Maoists, knowing that this engagement is necessary for stability and social justice through pluralism and democracy. But when there is no law and order, where the police and civil administration utterly lack in motivation, attacks have served to subdue and intimidate journalists, who lack protection everywhere. Some would look across the media landscape of Nepal today and conclude that our great advances since 1990 is seeing a rollback, a journey that would take us back to the Panchayat era.
Indeed a culture of silence seemed to be taking over, which envelopes not only the reporter but also the rights defenders and local level politician. You would not be able to point to a single government directive, but there is an infrastructure of impunity across the land, that emanates from a socialisation of the party leading government in the use of violence and threat of use of force, and a disinclination to transform. The use of threats and coercion has now been picked up by other groups large and small, in hill and plain. As a result, self-censorship has returned with a vengeance. There is circumlocution in reportage, things left unsaid.
And yet, I would like to believe that we have turned a corner here in Nepal, even as we serve as frontline guinea pigs for the transformation of an insurgent force into a political party. We, the journalists of Nepal, may not have the decades upon decades of legacy of our colleagues in other parts of South Asia, but the commitment to freedom runs as deep as the Himalayan rivers as they enter the plains. After a period of uncertainty, the journalists have decided that their vocation comes first. In doing so, they will not only be protecting democracy and pluralism, they will be protecting the very concept of participatory development, they will be providing the stability required for the writing of the new constitution, and they will be nudging the Maoists party towards democratisation.
I would like to end by putting on record my belief that it is the journalist of what is known as the ‘mofussil’ who will be the saviour of the polity of South Asia, even while journalism in the capitals in large cities remains important. Like the late Uma Singh, the ‘local level’ media practitioners work in the vernacular, exhibiting the finest values of journalism while working dangerously close to the ground. They are asked to work in the hardest beat of all, amidst corrupt businessmen, unaccountable police, harsh administrators, local hoodlums, dadas and yuddha-sardars, warlords. It is these journalists, working in the districts, out of small towns, often handling more than one job, who will provide the energy and relevance to journalism in South Asia. My plea is that we work to secure the profession by protecting the freedom and professionalism of the reporter and writer working in the districts, in the ‘mofussil’.
Kanak Mani Dixit is the editor and publisher of Himal South Asian. This essay was presented on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day at a conference of South Asian journalists on May 3, 2009, in Kathmandu
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